"We think it is one of the largest unlocked areas of mineral wealth in the nation. Its land mass is the size of England," he said.

A federal study has concluded $35 billion worth of minerals are beneath the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), a region which accounts for 13 per cent of South Australia.

It is about one third of a geological area known as the Gawler Craton, which is rich in minerals and includes the huge Olympic Dam deposit being mined by BHP Billiton.

"The Gawler Craton is a geological anomaly that we think holds vast reserves of uranium, copper and gold. In terms of copper, about 70 per cent of Australia's copper reserves are in the WPA, about 40 per cent of world's uranium reserves are in Olympic Dam. We think there is more in WPA," Mr Koutsantonis said.

"We didn't have much trouble at all over the years until about 2007/2008 when Department of Defence started getting a lot more pushy and officious about access," he said.

"That culminated in Minotaur actually being held to ransom and eventually evicted from our tenements."

He said it was not due to Minotaur having overseas partners.

"No, no it was something that happened to all the explorers at about that time," he said.

"It appears as if the Department of Defence got a bit worried about too many companies coming on and exploring.

"In prior years, there had been very few companies exploring but then the number of companies started to increase quite dramatically, the number of discoveries started to increase, which started to get them worried."

The Federal Government is taking submissions on the mining plan until the middle of June.

It's a fundamental human yearning to be a part of something bigger than one's self, and maybe that's what drove my mate Ash to die, far from home, in a bloody foreign war against Islamic State, writes C August Elliott.